Thursday, March 9, 2017

Think about how many amazing technologies you've watched soar to new heights
while you kick yourself thinking, "I knew about that before everyone
was talking about it, but I just sat on my hands.” If you’re like me, you can’t
help thinking about the money you could have made if you’d simply
bought Apple when it introduced the iPod in 2001. The stock is up over
100 times since then, turning a $10,000 investment into over $1
million! Heck, Apple is up nearly 1,000% since it launched the iPhone seven
years later. 300% since the iPad in 2010. Did you know how great and amazing
these new technologies were, but failed to invest behind them? You
might be retired and lounging on a beautiful beach somewhere if you had!
Well, it appears Apple is up to something again, but this time
it’s so radically different from its previous “iDevices" that you’ll be…
stunned. You’ll wonder if it could really work. You’ll wonder if management has
lost its mind. But remember… that’s what many people thought after Steve Jobs
introduced the iPod and iPhone! Big profits come from making bold choices. What
exactly is Apple doing? Well, residents of Sunnydale are reporting strange
noises roaring out of a mysterious Apple facility late at night. And Apple
leased an enormous, 5,000-acre, abandoned military base to serve as testing
grounds according to TechInsider. We know that it must be something BIG
because the company's R&D budget skyrocketed to more than 50 times as much
money as Apple spent to develop the original iPhone! Here’s what we
know...Apple just made a $10 billion play to get in early. Cisco
believes it will be a $19 trillion market before 2025. General Electric sees an
opportunity bigger than the entire economy of China! I saw Amazon received a
patent for a piece of it just a few days ago. Can Apple really pull
this moonshot off? With a track record like Apple has, I wouldn't be surprised.

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Brexit, Brexit, Brexit. For more than a year now, it has been scarcely possible to think or read about anything else. Seemingly all other economic discourse has been eclipsed by this over-riding prospect. In the circumstances, it’s an understandable obsession. Yet the fact is that far bigger challenges lie ahead for the UK economy than leaving the European Union, a point that the Governor the Bank of England, Mark Carney, seemed to acknowledge this week in admitting that Brexit was no longer the main domestic risk to financial stability. As it happens, it never was. Since the Brexit vote, the economy has continued to motor, and so far there seems to have been zero impact on financial stability...Over the last five years, the FTSE 100 has closed lower on seven of the 10 Friday 13ths. It could be a coincidence – or is there something else at play?

On Friday 13th July 2012, China’s GDP growth dropped to a three-year low of 7.6pc, marking a new stage for the country’s economic slowdown....Superstitious beliefs run so high in the UK that some people refuse to fly on Friday 13th, stay in hotel rooms bearing the unlucky digits or buy houses that bear the number 13. In fact, the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in North Carolina estimates that businesses lose up to $900m (£585m) in sales and productivity when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday as customers refrain from activities such as flying and anxious employees stay home from work. The phenomenon even has a name: paraskavedekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday 13th, while triskaidekaphobics are scared of the number 13 more generally. More than a quarter of Britons admit that they consider Friday 13th to be unlucky, according to a survey of 500 adults conducted by the conference call provider Powwownow. One in 10 people avoid travelling by train on Friday 13th, 11pc refuse to stay in hotel room number 13 and 16pc of people won’t take flights on this inauspicious day, the survey found.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

The US Federal Reserve has raised interest rates for only the second time in a decade.Janet Yellen, the chairman of the Fed, described the move as “a reflection of the confidence we have in the progress that the economy has made and our judgment that progress will continue”. But with “considerable uncertainty” surrounding the economic outlook, how is Donald Trump’s election as US president likely to shape the path of interest rates? After the financial crisis, the Fed slashed rates close to zero in a bid to support economic activity and prevent a bigger rise in unemployment.It kept them there until December 2015, when it raised its target range to between 0.25pc and 0.5pc.

Back then, policymakers signalled that four more interest rate rises were on the way if world events turned out as they predicted. They didn't. At the start of 2016, stock markets were rocked by fears over the Chinese economy, and policymakers opted to keep rates unchanged, noting that they were "closely monitoring global economic and financial developments". The Brexit vote in June also caused concern among policymakers. Even before the vote, policymakers noted that "the upcoming British referendum on membership in the European Union could generate financial market turbulence that could adversely affect domestic economic performance." While the Fed's mandate states that policymakers must "promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates" in the US, global events matter. The US presidential election also gave policymakers reasons for pause. At the start of last month, they judged that "the case for an increase in the federal funds rate [ie. interest rates] has continued to strengthen but [we] decided, for the time being, to wait for some further evidence of continued progress toward its objectives." While the UK voted for Brexit and the US voted for Donald Trump, the market reaction has been relatively calm.Investors are now expecting a mini-economic boom in the US and have pulled cash out of bonds and emerging markets and into US equities. Following last night's announcement, yields on two year Treasury bonds climbed to a seven-year high on expectations of faster rate hikes.Implied borrowing costs across Europe also ticked higher, with UK benchmark 10-year gilt yields

Thursday, September 1, 2016

France wants the EU to stop its negotiations with the US for a free-trade agreement.

"That means the end" of the talks, not a suspension, he said, adding he would officially make the demand at an EU trade minister meeting at the end of September.

"There is no political backing by France to these negotiations anymore,"Fekl told RMC radio and BFM TV, even though the Europeans can continue to negotiate "until the end of time [because] nobody can legally oppose it".

Fekl said that TTIP talks were "obscure" and that that the US "gives nothing or just crumbles".

"That is not how you negotiate between equals and allies," he said, adding that it was not the EU commission's fault.

The French minister's declaration comes two days after German vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said that TTIP talks had "de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it."

The EU commission, for its part, said on Monday that the "ball keeps rolling". Their chief negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero had also said that news of TTIP's demise was "greatly exaggerated".

Monday, August 1, 2016

GfK’s latest confidence barometer showed households were more pessimistic about their personal finances and the general economic outlook compared with June, with all five measures of its survey falling sharply this month. Its headline reading fell to -12 in July, from -1 in June. This represents the biggest monthly drop since March 1990 and is steeper than the decline to -9 recorded by an initial estimate in the first week of July. Joe Staton, head of market dynamics at GfK, said: “We’ve seen a very significant drop in confidence, as is clear from the fall in each of our key measures.” Mr Staton said the index was still at a “relatively elevated level by historic standards”, and the survey suggested Britons were not yet preparing to stash away more cash into their savings accounts in anticipation of a downturn. “The future trajectory depends on whether we enter a new period of damaging economic uncertainty or restore confidence by embracing a positive stance on negotiating a new deal for the UK,” said Mr Staton. GfK’s survey of 2,000 people was conducted in the first two weeks of July, with the poll ending just before Theresa May became prime minister on July 13.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

The "standard" model of coups organized by officers and failed is the Operation Valkyrie (Unternehmen Walkure), organized during WW2, to overthrow Hitler. The success or the failure of coups planned and executed by soldiers depends on successfully resolving three problems. The first is "concealment". Officers can't meet in secret in parks to plan a coup and they don't live for decades in foreign countries from where they are "dropped" in the country where they have to execute the coup! The solution always assumes the fact that the planning and staging activities of the coup are visible for the one whose removal from power is being sought, the supreme authority within the state, the supreme commander of the army, whether they are president or king. If the concealment of the coup doesn't work, then the military putsch will often fail in its embryo stage. In the case of Operation Valkyrie, the planning and organization was done under the pretense of a plan for exceptional situations, approved by Hitler himself, meant to prevent the loss of power under the pressure of a mass uprising of the population against the regime, due to the growing discontent and increasing sacrifices made in times of war, on the front as well as at home. It provided for the total transfer of the power in the hands of the reserve army, the legal dissolution and the dismantling of the other institutions of authority such as the SS or the Nazi party (NSDAP), the arrest of the leaders and the placing of the troops under the command of the commanders of military regions. The second condition is the quick removal of the head of state from the game, who legally holds authority over the army. Armies cannot function efficiently with divided loyalties. If the removal doesn't happen as soon as the coup starts, the odds of success fall proportionally, the longer the coup takes.

The 1943 version of the first public statement from the Valkyrie plan began with the words: "Fuhrer Adolf Hitler is dead" !!! In the real "movie" of the operation this item didn't work out, due to the failure of the attack of July 20th.

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Obama had warned against a withdrawal, as had the IMF and just about any economist of significance. The fact that the majority of Brits nevertheless voted for independence of course understandably increases the surprise by those being left behind. You can read just about anywhere right now that many British didn't even know what they were voting for and would now like to reverse their vote. But this is also part of the therapeutic program that the media here in Germany offers to its readers in order to reduce the psychological burden. It's also easy to disprove the myth that the older population stole the future away from the youth. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, voter turnout was 36 percent according to pollster Sky Data. If anyone, it was the youth who squandered their own future. Along with the outrage over the election result, there's a conspicuous lack of desire to address the root reasons for the election victory. Like the fact that one of the world's oldest democracies may have lost faith in the European institutions because democracy is something its people hold near and dear. It's a thought that is immediately banished. Instead we hear about how reckless David Cameron was in calling for a referendum. The argument, put forth in numerous versions, holds that you cannot hold a popular referendum on something as complicated as EU membership. It's astonishing how many commentators have parroted that line, seemingly unconscious of what it says about their own understanding of democracy. What it really means is this: Elections can only be good if the results correspond with the desires of the educated. Or as Micky Beisenherz, a columnist for the German weekly Stern, put it: "Democracy is great thing. The only dumb thing about it is that stupid are allowed to participate."

Sunday, July 3, 2016

The bankruptcy of the EU was triggered by the bankruptcy of Deutschebank, the largest bank in Europe, according to members of the Rothschild banking dynasty. Deutschebank is now under Chinese control, they say. If the Chinese had not stepped in to save Deutschebank, its collapse would have triggered a domino effect that would have taken down the entire European and then Western banking systems, multiple sources agree. There was also a secret dimension to this bankruptcy that can be traced to military activity in the Pacific Ocean. A massive joint Chinese and American fleet was engaged in “maneuvers” last week off the shores of the Philippines. You can also confirm on the Pentagon official homepage that massive joint exercises involving naval forces from 27 nations, including China and the US, start near Hawaii on June 30th.

The result of this maneuver is that the Freeport McMoRan gold mine located near the submarine base has suddenly been put up for sale for the price of $20 billion, according to CIA sources based in Indonesia. Members of the board of directors of Freeport McMorRan have included such characters as Henry Kissinger and Godfrey Stillman Rockefeller.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeport-McMoRan . The CIA sources say the Freeport McMoRan mine is being offered to the Chinese via a front company out of Australia. This is how Indonesia hopes to pay off $20-30 billion that was advanced to it by the Chinese last year, they say. However, they add, “The US side knows that they are selling a virtually empty hole.” Meanwhile the previous owners of Freeport “will move to another mountain which is within 5-7 miles from the Grasberg mine, which is Freeport’s current mining area. Someone is getting the shaft in this deal… No pun intended.” The source said he thought the massive joint naval exercise was “just a cover.”

The Chinese need to remember that “Kissinger has been a 50% owner of Freeport since the reign of Suharto, when he was given the shares in exchange for other services and profitable joint ventures between Suharto and the Kissinger Boys…..ie; the Cabal [Khazarian mafia].”

Saturday, July 2, 2016

The real reason for the ongoing trouble in the European Union, including the recent vote by the British people to leave the bloc, is that the EU is bankrupt. We know in retrospect that the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union was the real reason the Warsaw pact fell apart, with Poland acting as the first domino. For the same reason, we can predict England was the first domino in the collapse of the European Union. The emerging consensus view is, as Pentagon analysts put it, “Brexit may lead to Frexit (French exit), the collapse of banks, populism, nationalism and anti-globalism.” This is also likely lead to an end to Khazarian mafia sponsored Muslim immigration. The situation in France has already become so chaotic that French police say they are becoming too exhausted to deal with the daily, violent demonstrations taking place throughout the country. French President Francois Hollande, who has only 11% public support, is trying to ban demonstrations but it is hard to see who will enforce his “ban.” In other words, France is headed for revolution. “This is the worst period I recall, there is nothing like it,” is how former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan described the general situation and the market chaos that followed the Brexit vote.

Friday, July 1, 2016

The European Council has offered a narrow window, saying that Britain has not left until Article 50 is activated formally by the Prime Minister, “if it is indeed the intention of the British government.” Mr Cameron has left it to his successor to activate it. Mrs Merkel is in no hurry. Senior EU sources say they can wait until Christmas, but prevarication would trash Britain's credit-worthiness. There are two problems. Firstly, to not activate Article 50 would be a rejection of democracy on a scale that could only be described as a coup, and would poison British public life for generations.

Secondly, a wave of movements demanding referendums on the terms of membership, given a huge boost by Mr Cameron, is tearing across Europe – in France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Italy, Hungary. Marine Le Pen could will run rampant in French elections in the spring.

Leaders anticipated that Boris Johnson would pursue a 'vote leave for a better deal' strategy, and ruled it out from February, precisely to prevent this scenario. Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday: “The repercussions of the British referendum could quickly put a stop to such crass rabble-rousing, as it should soon become clear that the UK was better off inside the EU.” Britain simply has to go, on bad terms, pour encourager les autres.

Saturday, June 18, 2016

IT viruses dedicated to banking services have been configured to be used on the Romanian banking market, said Cătălin Pătraşcu, the head of the IT Security and Monitoring Service of CERT-RO.

According to him, the Tinba Trojan is a cybernetic threat which lately has started targeting 12 Romanian banks, and Dridex is a Trojan that targets bank customers. Mr. said: "Initially the news was that computer viruses have appeared that are targeting for the first time Romanian banks and users. This was a false piece of news. In fact, Tinba or Dridex, are very well known malware versions and have not been especially created for Romania. They are very well known versions, which have been configured to work with the financially services in Romania. Most of the time, those who use online banking have an application or a webpage that they use the service through. The virus has simply been taught to recognize the banking page or the application so it can steal your credentials or to make transactions in your name". Cătălin Pătraşcu also said that a threat that is on the rise is "Ransomware" - the type of malware that encrypts data upon infection and then asks the victims to pay up in order to decrypt it. "At CERT-RO we have encountered cases of public and private persons, citizens who have had this problem", said Mr. Pătraşcu, who stated that a guide has been created to fight this threat. "There is one rule that is as simple as it is effective: don't just click any link you run across", the CERT-RO official said. According to him, at least a quarter of the public IP addresses in Romania have been reported as being involved in at least one security alert. Approximately 80% of the processed alerts refer to systems that display various vulnerabilities. 20% of the alerts refer to various systems that are part of a botnet (a network of infected computers), according to Mr. Pătraşcu. He also mentioned that the number of ".ro" segments or of sites that have been reported as having various problems has increased 60% in 2015 over 2014 "The speed in fixing security vulnerabilities leaves a lot to be desired in Romania. There are still vulnerabilities in the wild that have been found three years ago", Cătălin Pătraşcu said.

CERT-RO serves the role of preventing and responding to cybernetic security incidents.

Friday, June 3, 2016

Innovative towers are transforming skylines worldwide, shifting the focus from record breaking spires to imaginative solutions that embrace sustainability and economic conditions. The race to scrape the skies has taken a refreshing turn, and congratulations are in order for Bosco Verticale in Milan by Stefano Boeri Architetti, recipient of the 2015 Best Tall Building Worldwide. Four regional winners representing the America’s, Asia & Australasia, Europe, and Middle East & Africa were selected in July from a pool of 123 entries by The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH). The not-for-profit organisation is the world's leading resource for skyscraper design, with a prestigious panel of expert judges. SOM scooped the regional prize for the America’s with the crystalline form of One World Trade Center in New York City. The environmentally conscious design for CapitaGreen by Toyo Ito & Associates in Singapore’s business district won the Asia & Australasia category, and the undulating façade of Burj Mohammed Bin Rashid Tower by Foster + Partners claimed the Middle East & Africa category. Bosco Verticale, the European victor was announced as overall winner at the 14th annual CTBUH International Best Building Awards Symposium. Chicago, the birthplace of the skyscraper played host to the awards ceremony and dinner, celebrated on 12 November in Mies van der Rohe’s iconic S.R. Crown Hall, at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Bosco Verticale, which translates as ‘Vertical Forest,’ was considered ‘ground-breaking’ by the judges for the viability of incorporating a multi-storey intensive living façade. The two residential towers are screened by trees and vegetation, inspiring interaction with the surrounding environment, while creating a protective micro-climate. With not a spire in sight, this year's winner is living proof that vertical forests are not such a tall order after all.

Friday, May 6, 2016

The rulings issued by the courts in the lawsuits filed by the National Consumer Protection Authority (ANPC) against banks apply to all similar loan contracts, the Constitutional Court of Romania ruled yesterday (CCR), which has rendered a ruling on the unconstitutionality exception raised concerning art. 12 and 13 of the Law no. 193/2000 concerning abusive clauses in contracts concluded between traders and consumers, as announced by the Parakletos Association in a press release. He explained that the exception was invoked by four banks in the lawsuits they are involved in with the ANPC concerning the existence of abusive clauses in the contracts they concluded with consumers. "The CCR has rejected the exception, meaning that a ruling in favor of the ANPC has erga omnes effects, in other words it applies to all contracts of that nature", according to Parakletos. So far, the ANPC has won several such lawsuits in the first circuit, with the banks, the one against OTP has also been won in the last circuit. In October 2013, the provisions of articles 12 and 13 of the Law no. 193/2000 concerning abusive clauses in contracts concluded between professionals and consumers, with the modifications that were made to them by the Law no. 76/2012 for the implementation of the Law no. 134/2010 concerning the Civil Procedure Code. Article 12 stipulates: "If the use of adhesion contracts which include abusive clauses are found, the control entities stipulated in Art. 8 (ed. note: the authorized agents of the National Consumer Protection Agency and authorized specialists of other entities of the public administration, depending on their competences) will notify the court from the domicile, or the headquarters of the professional, and demanding that the professional be required to amend the ongoing contracts, by removing the abusive clauses they may contain. (...) The consumer protection associations (...) can sue professionals that use adhesion contracts that contain abusive clauses, with the courts stipulated in paragraph (1), and ask the latter to decide the cessation of their use, by eliminating the abusive clauses". Article 13 states: "The court, if it finds the existence of abusive terms in the contract, requires the professionals to change all ongoing adhesion contracts, as well as to eliminate all abusive clauses from boilerplate contracts, meant to be used as part of the professional activity". There are several ongoing "class action" lawsuits filed by the ANPC, especially against banks. The Parakletos Association has intervened in seven of the ANPC cases against the banks, as a third party. The leaders of Parakletos state that, through the ruling in the ANPC/OTP Bank case, lays the groundwork for the straightening of all the contracts between professionals and consumers, when they contain abusive clauses, without the consumers in question having to resort to individual lawsuits.

Friday, April 29, 2016

The European Central Bank (ECB) pursues its mandate and defends its independence, according to statements of the president of the institution, Mario Draghi, who responded yesterday, to some criticisms coming from several German officials concerning the lax monetary policy of the ECB.

Draghi yesterday said, in a press conference: "We have the mandate of ensuring price stability for the entire Eurozone, not just for Germany. We obey the law, not politicians, because we are independent, as stipulated by the law". Over the last few weeks, several German politicians have criticized the ultralax monetary policy adopted by the ECB, which cut the policy rate to zero in March. The officials in Berlin are saying that this measure affects those Germans who save money. (A.V.) Mario Draghi said that the ECB is ready "to use all the available instruments" to stimulate the rise of prices in the Eurozone, but expressed his confidence in the effects of the measures passed by the bank so far. "Our policies work, they are efficient", said Draghi, and he added: "It just takes time for those measures to produce their effects in full". The president of the ECB also stressed that aggressive measures, the kind of "money thrown from helicopters", has not even been brought up in this week's meeting of the council of governors. Yesterday, the ECB decided not to change the interest rate, after it cut it to a historic low in its March meeting, in an attempt to boost inflation. The ECB kept the policy rate at zero, while the interest on the marginal lending facility was kept at 0.25%, and the interest rate on deposits was kept at - -0.40%.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Greece's lenders, especially the IMF, want the Greek parliament to adopt a €3.6 billion package of austerity measures that would be implemented only if Greece missed its primary surplus target for 2018, set at 3.5 percent of GDP by the bailout memorandum signed last year.

The primary surplus is the budget surplus before the state has to repay interests on its debt.

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The Greek government, which said legislating in advance was unconstitutional, has proposed to commit to take measures in the future if fiscal data approved by Eurostat show that the target will be missed. A more political argument is that the quartet's request for a contingency package goes beyond what was agreed by eurozone leaders last July and then written down in the bailout memorandum of understanding signed in August. That is why Tsipras, who always said he would do "nothing more and nothing less" than what was agreed last summer, is trying to push the discussion back to the highest political level. A eurozone summit is however unlikely, as EU leaders have been willing to let their finance ministers deal with the Greek crisis. The leaders took over the talks last year only when a Greek exit from the eurozone became a real danger.

Monday, April 4, 2016

..... For the picture to be complete, we need to dig into the deepest underground
of the terrorist phenomenon. One that has been born and evolves with "genetic
information" originating from the "parents" that carefully hide their identity:
secret services and special actions which have been around for a long time and
span the world. There is no need to fall into the trap of conspiracy theories to
understand that operations organized across multiple continents and decades,
with multiple and complex links: ideological awareness and indoctrination,
recruitment, training, planning, verification, execution and exploitation of
terrorist attacks are impossible to achieve straight away, by some faction of
semi-illiterate persons gathering in the basements of some mosque, or in the
bars of London, Paris, Berlin or Brussels. It takes know how and far more
resources than some "networks of evil" organized by some obscure conclave of
mullahs with radicalized speeches and anti-Western grudges have available. Just
like the story that young people born and raised on the soil of European
countries just wake up one day and go to some Yemenite camp, out of curiosity,
to get trained on how to then blow themselves up in the Brussels airport, is
more of a myth, than a verifiable reality. The undergrounds of the terrorist
phenomenon, just like those of the unchecked waves of migrants, that have just
swooped down on Europe out of the blue, are being controlled and full of covert,
undisclosed and undisclosable activities of some of the most experienced evil
puppet masters of "Big Politics" and of the constantly renewed "Global
confrontation"

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

FOR a brief moment at the turn of the year, Angela Merkel seemed to have recaptured control of Germany’s careering debate over refugees. The chancellor’s traditional New Year’s Eve address was acclaimed for striking just the right note. For the first time ever it was broadcast with subtitles, in Arabic and English, so that refugees as well as Germans would get her message. Mrs Merkel reminded the 1.1m asylum-seekers who arrived in Germany in 2015 to respect German rules and traditions. She urged her German viewers not to let themselves be divided, and warned of “those who, with coldness or even hatred in their hearts, lay sole claim to be German and seek to exclude others”. Yet even as Mrs Merkel was speaking, about a thousand men, described by police as mainly migrants of north African or Arab origin, began massing between Cologne’s railway station and cathedral, where fireworks were about to begin. Around midnight they broke into clusters and formed huddles around women who had turned out to celebrate. They then set upon the women, harassing and groping them, stripping them of clothing and valuables. One victim was raped. Of the more than 600 women who have since come forward, many described the ordeal as “running the gauntlet”.

Sunday, February 28, 2016

The ECB is to discuss whether to expand its stimulus measures at its next meeting March 10. Draghi said there were "a variety of instruments" the ECB could employ if it decided more is needed. It could increase its 60 billion euros in monthly bond purchases with newly printed money, a step aimed at driving down already low interest rates and raising inflation that remains too low at 0.4 percent.

He expressed some frustration with governments that have held back spending at a time of economic weakness. He urged governments that are in better shape financially to spend more on public investment that would increase grow and to avoid excessive taxation.

Monetary policy from the central bank "is the only truly stimulative policy over the past four years," he said. ECB officials have warned governments not to rely just on central bank stimulus to boost the modest eurozone recovery.